SEC Wednesday (on Friday) #11

I know I’ve been AWOL lately, but my sports fandom takes a back seat for a few days every two to four years. I won’t say who I wanted to win, but I did want to mention that Trump is the first Republican since 1980 to win in a year in which Alabama beat LSU in football.

I started with a 3-2 advantage ATS. I didn’t see the Vanderbilt coming close or Mississippi St. and Arkansas winning. I did pick the Hogs with the points though, so I won that one. I got the close game by Georgia Southern right, and I got the win by more than 7 by South Carolina right.

But it seems like no matter what I do, I’m destined to have a losing record every week. So I was winning against the spread with Georgia/Kentucky until the last play of the game, and I was winning with LSU/Alabama until the last 3 minutes. Of course both teams that I didn’t pick kicked field goals, and that dropped me to 3-4. I didn’t do very well in picking winners either: 5-3 there.

Georgia’s Rodrigo Blankenship kicks the winning field goal against Kentucky.

It’s too late to start something new this year, but I’m thinking I might have a pick of the week or a couple of picks of the week to let people know what I feel confident in and what I don’t. I felt confident about Georgia Southern and South Carolina this week, for instance. I was a lot less confident in my LSU and Kentucky picks than I was for the earlier games.

My records fall to 69-15 and 33-39-1 against the spread.

Next Week

If I pick an upset team to win, I’ll make that clear. When I talk about whether a team is going to lose by more than or fewer than 40 points, I don’t think it’s necessary to specify.

Although Alabama keeps beating LSU, make no mistake that that’s still a big game for them. That’s why they take their bye week before the LSU game every year. Alabama’s next game is against Mississippi St., which is not having a good season with 5 losses already. So I do think there is an inevitable let down no matter how grumpy it would make Saban. In light of that, 30 points is too much.

Even if you just look at prior games, only one team (Auburn) beat the Bulldogs by more than 3 points in regulation. Alabama has won a few games by more than 30, but one was the season opener against USC (and the Trojans started poorly) and another was against Kent St. The Tide did beat Tennessee by a lot, but for reasons I discussed I don’t think this is the week they repeat that kind of performance.

Speaking of the Vols, South Carolina had a great home win over Tennessee, but these are the Gamecocks’ road results: beat Vandy by 3, lost to Mississippi St. by 13, lost to Kentucky by 7. They also lost to Georgia by 14 and Texas A&M by 11 at home. Florida hasn’t been a reliable point-producer, so I’m not 100% confident by any means, but it should be fairly easy for the Gators to accumulate enough points to win by 11.

I’m going to go the other way with Kentucky against Tennessee. The Vols haven’t been the same since the OT loss to Texas A&M, but Kentucky is a tough team to beat. They weren’t the first two weeks of the season, but since then their only losses are to Alabama by 28 and Georgia on the final play by 3 last week. I think the Vols win because they’re at home, but not by 14 or more.

I’ve been doing great by picking against Missouri, so I’m going to keep doing it. I also should have picked Vandy more this season. Commodores +3.5 and to win.

Auburn laid an egg as far as the point spread last week, but I don’t think they’ll do it two weeks in a row. I think that was a wake-up call. Georgia’s last home game was a loss to Vanderbilt, before the 14-point neutral loss to Florida. Last week doesn’t drastically alter my expectations of this game, so I’ll take Auburn -10.5.

The combined final score of the last two games was Arkansas 48, LSU 14, so I don’t know how you get LSU -7. I do expect LSU to win by 3 or 4 though. Even discounting the last two games, when LSU beats Arkansas, it’s usually really close. So I’ll take the Hogs and 7.

At this rate, Ole Miss may struggle to make a bowl game. They ended a three-game losing streak by beating Georgia Southern by 10, and now Chad Kelly is gone for good. I want to express my condolences to him, by the way. I hate to see a college football career end with an injury. He’s a player I respected, and it can be sad enough to see someone’s last game be bowl loss.

So now the Rebels travel to the home of the 12th man. The good news for Ole Miss is the Aggies just lost to Mississippi St., but I’m not sure how much that helps. The Rebels do not have a good defense, and to now have a questionable offense is an unenviable position. The Aggies often struggle in November, which would be a deciding factor if it were close in my mind, but I just can’t muster any confidence in Ole Miss to keep it within 10.5.